Ergodic Animage

The two terms composing ergodic animage are defined as following.

• “Aarseth’s (1997) ergodicity (the interactive process of working to create a path through the configuration of a textual machine with no guarantee of success (p.1, p.179))” (Arsenault et al., p. 91)
• “Gaudreault and Marion’s (2013) animage (a “ type of film image that is born from the expressive potential of the digital and that crystallizes the current spreading of a cultural series formerly neglected by the cinema institution: animation” (p.256))” (Arsenault et al., p. 91)

In the words of the authors, the “ergodic animage is the meeting point and mediating factor between the player’s agency and the game’s visual representation of its internal state.” (Arsenault et al., p. 91)

See also

• The Game FAVR: A Framework for the Analysis of Visual Representation in Video Games
• The paper Making the Water Move: Techno-Historic Limits in the Game Aesthetics of Myst and Doom also references Ergodicity.